The Courtney Love Lil' Kim Rap You'll Never Hear

Courtney Love's had quite the life. In a nutshell: kicked out of boarding school; a rambling, trust-fund fueled existence; the stripper days; the bands (she started out as the lead singer of Faith No More!); her widely celebrated career as an actor (Sid and Nancy, The People Vs. Larry Flint); and, of course, Kurt. There was, and still is, Hole, one of the biggest and most influential bands to have come out of the grunge scene. And you'd have to be living under a rock not to be aware of her strange antics on and off the stage, the custody battles, the drugs. Her life has been poured over and documented in a way that's borderline inhumane.

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So when we heard Ms. Love was going to hold her own in a Q&A with festival co-director Alphan Eseli during the Istancool festival this past weekend, we were skeptical as to how she'd compose herself. The talk was titled "Artist As a Brand," and Love showed a keen depth of knowledge on the topic of marketing and branding. Inevitably, the conversation turned personal. Pointing out the difference between being a movie star and a musician, she had this to say: "Movie stars have to be nice. Musicians can be bitches. I could never be nice all the time—I get a little grumpy." On the topic of self-recovery: "Rehab: Go enough times, it'll work."

A few juicy secrets were revealed, like the time she was asked by Oliver Stone to work on a rap song with Lil' Kim for the Any Given Sunday soundtrack. "You'll never hear it," Love assured the audience. "I took the masters home and probably burned them." If you're wondering what sort of lines Courtney Love likes to rap, we were lucky to get this little gem (sarcastically uttered by Love herself): "Sometimes the good girls / The good girls / Are born bad."

She shared utterly private moments with the audience as well, like the time Kurt gifted her a Yoko Ono box set as a birthday gift. "I threw it at his head!" she exclaimed. Referencing comparisons made by fans alluding to the idea that she was somehow responsible for the rifts Nirvana endured towards the end, she remembered this: "Someone once told me `People hate you more than they hated Yoko.'"

In the end, she was happiest when referring to her most recent work: "I know that [this new album] is the best I've ever made." Indeed, the night before, Love and her long time guitarist, Micko Larkin played an intimate show featuring a song written in the last few days and it was (excuse the gushing) absolutely magical. Though her voice was raspy, it was brimming with passion and the show was a hit, laced with classics like Malibu and covers of Like a Prayer and Leonard Cohen's Take This Longing. Here's to the new album, Courtney!